UGA News Service

The University of Georgia Performing Arts Center will open the 2013-2014 season with a concert by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra on Sept. 29 at 3 p.m. in Hodgson Hall.

Music Director Robert Spano will conduct the Grammy-winning orchestra in a program featuring three “No. 3’s” by the “Three B’s” of classical music: Bach’s Suite No. 3 for Orchestra, Brahms’ Symphony No. 3 and Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3. Internationally renowned pianist André Watts will join the orchestra for the Beethoven concerto.

Watts made his debut in 1963 when he was 16 years old when Leonard Bernstein chose him to perform with the New York Philharmonic in their Young People’s Concerts, broadcast nationwide on CBS-TV. Two weeks later, Bernstein asked him to substitute at the last minute for the ailing Glenn Gould in performances with the New York Philharmonic, thus launching his career.

Watts’s 1976 New York recital, aired on the program “Live From Lincoln Center,” was the first full-length recital broadcast in the history of television, and his performance at the 38th Casals Festival in Puerto Rico was nominated for an Emmy Award. He has played before royalty in Europe and heads of government in nations all over the world, and in 2011 he was awarded the National Medal of Arts, bestowed by President Obama in a ceremony at the White House.

At age 26, Watts was the youngest person ever to receive an honorary doctorate from Yale University, and he has since received numerous honors from highly respected schools including the University of Pennsylvania, Brandeis University, the Juilliard School of Music, and his alma mater, the Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins University.

The Performing Arts Center will offer a pre-concert lecture at 2:15 p.m. The lecture is free and open to the public.

Tickets for the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra concert are $25-$60 with discounts for UGA students. Tickets can be purchased online at pac.uga.edu or by calling the box office at 706-542-4400 or toll free at 888-289-8497.